Long story VERY short: My partner Drew has degenerative disc disease and had a pretty big fall recently, and is unable to work. I am disabled for various mental and physical health reasons, and I’ve been trying to get disability benefits to assist us, with no luck yet. Late last year, by some force of nature, Drew was presented with an opportunity to start his own company(in just MONTHS) that is actually bringing his late father’s company back to life. We are terrified to lose this LITERAL once in a lifetime opportunity that fell in our laps, as well as potentially losing our house as new homeowners.

THE DETAILS: Drew has just started a company that launched on January 1st. It was by chance and an absolute FB marketplace miracle that brought this company to fruition. Drew’s late father (Doug Stotts) had a fairly large and successful sandblasting company that completely fell apart with his unfortunate passing a few years ago. This meant that his house and workshop fell to the state, and we assumed it was lost and gone forever. He did not have any end-of-life care or will in place due to his untimely death during a routine shoulder surgery. With his passing, he left a huge hole in our hearts. He was a radiant man—just absolutely kind and had the best laugh. One random day last October, a close friend of ours discovered the miracle marketplace item: it was Doug’s entire mobile sandblasting unit, along with all of his tools—all discovered by complete chance. Drew immediately messaged the poster, and with a lot of hard work by Drew, he was able to bring the company back to life. This is a way that we can keep Doug alive in our hearts and the community.

HIM: So since Drew has degenerative disc disease, he’s been having some back pain since he rekindled the company. He was trying to power through the pain but had a pretty bad fall out of his work truck last week; his foot went numb from his back issues. Drew has had back surgery twice already, once in 2023 and in 2005 after a bad car accident. It’s looking like he may need another surgery. It’ll take some time for him to recover from this, so he won’t be able to work any jobs until he’s not in pain.

ME: I am chronically ill and disabled. I have not been working since October 2023. I was wrongly fired from a job, took them to court, and won a tiny settlement. It was nice to get, but still not a permanent fix to our situation. I got fired when I was in the middle of spiraling downwards mentally into a deep, dark burnout hole combined with all of my medical conditions at the time. Since I’ve started my healing journey, I have been a huge advocate for my healing, did a lot of research, and presented it to my doctors. I have since been diagnosed with: Ehlers-Danlos, Early Onset Osteoarthritis, Fibromyalgia, Severe Endometriosis (which was diagnosed finally with an Explorative Laparoscopic Hysterectomy in December), Chronic Pain, Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, and Anxiety and Depression on top of everything. This combo has been really difficult—and I haven’t been able to dig myself out of this hole enough to be able to function. Every day is a struggle, but it feels SO GOOD to finally have the diagnoses that have made me feel like I’ve been struggling my whole life. As an artist, I’m doing what I can to help our situation, but it’s just not enough.

We were not financially prepared to handle an emergency situation like this because of how expensive things are these days. I know a lot of people are in similar situations to us. All of our money we made was just enough to live paycheck to paycheck before his accident.

I see now that I have completely pulled away from my friends, family, and community—online and in person. I feel like a huge bummer to be around. Since I’m chronically ill, it seems like all I have to talk about is my medical situation. I always have so much going on in my life, for better and worse in the health department. It’s not fun to be ill and have no straight answer to healing. I hate to be a burden, so I’ve pulled away from everyone.

Asking for help is something very difficult to do for me in general, but I do know it is necessary at times. I am at a loss as to what to do in our situation, so I’m asking for help.

Please help us be able to keep our family, home, and new business endeavor from falling apart. A dollar from every one of my FB friends would be enough to help us out tremendously. Please, do what you can. If you aren’t in the financial situation (TRUST ME, I KNOW THE FEELING) to donate, please share our story. Just reading this alone, I hope you can take something from our stories. Love your family and friends SO HARD. We appreciate anything and everything you do for us. Thank you.